In today’s newsletter:
🔎Will the US and China start buying Bitcoin?
📊 On-chain alpha
🪂Airdrop spotlight: Solayer
😂 Crypto meme of the week
🗞️ The latest DeFi news
🔎Will the US and China start buying Bitcoin?
It’s been a historic week for crypto.
Without a doubt, Trump’s speech at the Bitcoin 2024 conference was the event that generated the most buzz.
However, this was just the tip of the iceberg. And I mean this in a good way.
Let’s break down all the big announcements from the past 7d:
1) Trump will create a strategic national Bitcoin stockpile
If he gets elected, Donald Trump promised he will hold the U.S. government’s current stash of 210k $BTC as part of a national Bitcoin stockpile.
Besides this, he made a few other interesting statements:
“On day one I will fire Gary Gensler and appoint a new SEC chairman”
“I reaffirm my pledge to commute Ross Ulbricht's sentence”
“There will never be a CBDC while I am President of the United States”
“The United States will be the crypto capital of the planet”
What’s funny is that shortly after the Bitcoin 2024 conference, Trump also began selling a limited edition of Bitcoin sneakers.
Trump releasing Bitcoin sneakers was not on my bingo cards for 2024😂
2) Robert F. Kennedy Jr will make the US acquire 4M BTC if elected
RFK Jr announced this at the Bitcoin 2024 conference.
Can you imagine the buying pressure for BTC if this were to happen?
4 million BTC is ~20% of the total Bitcoin supply.
While RFK Jr.’s chances of becoming the next US president seem extremely low at this point, an announcement like this sets a great precedent.
No one would have expected a presidential candidate to say this a few years ago.
3) A Hong Kong legislator proposed a Bitcoin reserve
The world is watching what’s happening in the US.
This proposal came shortly after Donald Trump’s speech about Bitcoin.
If the US, the world's largest economy, is indeed going to launch a strategic national BTC reserve, many other countries will likely follow.
The Hong Kong legislator’s initiative is part of a broader effort to accelerate the process of helping Hong Kong to become a crypto hub.
4) US Senator Lummis introduced a Bitcoin Strategic Reserve bill
On July 31, she officially introduced a bill that would direct the US government to accumulate 1 million BTC, which is 5% of its total supply.
At today’s prices, 1M BTC is worth over $60 billion.
She explained that accumulating BTC could provide a hedge against economic uncertainty and monetary instability.
5) Russia has legalized crypto mining
Russia used to be completely anti-crypto, but this is starting to change.
On top of allowing crypto mining, the country’s parliament has recently also passed a bill allowing companies to use crypto payments for international trade.
All these recent developments make me very bullish on crypto for Q4.
They remind me of this saying:
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
The “then you win” phase now seems inevitable for crypto.
🪂Airdrop spotlight: Solayer
Solayer is one of the first liquid restaking protocols on Solana.
If you have some SOL or SOL liquid staking tokens, I believe that restaking it on Solayer is one of the best airdrop opportunities on Solana right now.
A few things to know about it:
The protocol currently has $147M in TVL
Solayer is backed by Anatoly Yakovenko, the Co-Founder of Solana Labs, and Sandeep, the Founder of Polygon
SOL restakers on Solayer get sSOL, which can be used in DeFi
Given the huge success of ETH restaking, I think that SOL restaking also has significant growth potential.
You’ll need an invite code to deposit on Solayer as it is currently still in a private access phase. You can use mine if you want: GR4967
On-chain Alpha🔎
Polymarket monthly volume skyrocketed to new ATHs
I guess it’s safe to say that Polymarket is the crypto-killer app of this cycle.
For those who haven’t heard about it before, Polymarket is a prediction market that lets you speculate on a lot of things, including presidential elections, crypto events, sports events, and much more.
Interestingly, a few weeks ago, Polymarket became one of the first crypto applications to be featured on CNN:
Crypto Meme😂
The latest developments in DeFi
US Senator Lummis introduced a Bitcoin Strategic Reserve bill. The bill proposes buying 5% of the BTC total supply
Jito announced Jito Restaking for SOL and other SPL tokens
AAVE DAO is discussing activating the fee switch
Instadapp’s proposal to deploy Fluid on Base is live. 100k OP and 85k USDC will be distributed to its early users on Base
LandX launched the public beta of LandX Credit Gateway, the world's first lending market for agricultural real-world assets
TON blockchain has released gasless transactions
pSTAKE Finance’s Bitcoin Liquid Staking v1 went live. Early depositors will get boosted pSats points at the SatDrop Campaign launch
Ethena announced that Bybit users will soon be able to trade derivatives with USDe collateral while earning up to 20% APR
Eclipse, Ethereum’s first SVM L2, opened its mainnet for builders. Eclipse aims to combine Ethereum’s security with Solana's speed and execution
Jupiter Exchange launched Jupiter Spot, a product that unifies most of its products under a single smooth UI
Dinero introduced institutional pxETH, allowing institutions to access its Ethereum staking product
Renzo’s Season 2 airdrop snapshot was taken
Movement, a Move-based Ethereum L2, launched its public testnet
Maverick, an innovative AMM, released Maverick v2 on Scroll
Layer3 has released its token $L3
That’s all for this week!
Until next time,
The DeFi Investor
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